Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
FurnitureDealer.Net Promotes 3 as Part of Succession Plan
April 20,
2017 by Larry Thomas in Economic News, Industry 
FurnitureDealer.Net, a provider of websites and omnichannel marketing services for independent home furnishings retailers, has promoted company veterans Kayla Wallace, Alex Kirsch and Emily Severson as part of a succession plan approved by the company’s founders and senior leadership team.
Wallace has been promoted to the new role of vice president of client relationships, responsible for overseeing and directing the company’s premium client relationships and leading the client relations team.
Kirsch has been promoted to the new role of vice president of client solutions, focusing on defining, expanding and implementing new and existing internal and third party features, services and training for retailer clients.
Severson has been promoted to the new role of vice president of merchandising operations and supplier relations, focusing on publishing quality and improving processes and relationships with suppliers and industry partners.
Joe Craddock, FurnitureDealer.Net president and co-founder will continue to lead the company’s technology and overall strategy.
In their expanded roles, Wallace and Kirsch will continue to lead the company’s retailer client-facing business segment, while Severson will continue to lead the company’s publishing operations and supplier-facing business segment.
As part of the succession plan, company founder Andy Bernstein will remain active within the company as owner, advisor and chairman. His role will continue to shift from working with retailer website clients to working on special projects and new initiatives and long term strategy.
According to Bernstein, “My strengths are best suited to early stage initiatives and problem solving, rather than managing a business that runs as well as ours does now. The strengths and values of our leadership team are ideally suited to manage the stage our company is at today and into the future."
Bernstein said the succession plan has been implemented in phases over several years.
“For the past two years Joe and I have focused on people development and leadership. I am proud of what we have accomplished as a company and how much we have grown our culture and developed our team,” he said. “I’m excited about the vision for continuous improvement, innovation and growth these leaders have charted for us and our clients.
“I’m confident in the leadership team’s ability to execute their vision. They have proven their ability to get others to want to follow and to execute, and they are surrounded by a talented, engaged team made up of future leaders.”